mask adjustment

[unclescoob]

I need help creating a mask that will leave the background (wall behind the character) clear for filtration.

A script using grayscale (so that I can visibly see the masked/unmasked areas) would really help.

A small explanation would help as well; so that I can apply this to other scenes.

Attached is my source clip.

Thanks.

[poisondeathray]

It's not possible to do a good mask for the background wall behind the character by using "easy" methods

In general, in order to generate a mask, you need to isolate by some component. You need some distinguishing factor that separates your selected region from everything else e.g. a certain luma range, or saturation mask, or a certain specific color

Because the flicker, and the wall is non even (it's not a single "shade", there is a change of gradients along the wall of colors) , the mask will be difficult to isolate by those standard methods

In cases like this, if you still need a perfect mask, often rotoscoping is done (manually drawing and animating a mask)

[unclescoob]

(manually drawing and animating a mask)

How would I do this?

[poisondeathray]

(manually drawing and animating a mask)

How would I do this?

Typically in compositing software, something like after effects


Sometimes people come up with very creative ways to generate masks and isolate regions; like applying various manipulations, and filters - so I would wait a bit, someone might come up with a novel idea . Rotoscoping is tedious, and usually the last resort

[unclescoob]

Cool. If I can generate something in paint and apply it to my script that would be great.
thanks.

[poisondeathray]

Cool. If I can generate something in paint and apply it to my script that would be great.
thanks.

That's the basic idea behind rotoscoping , but it's done frame by frame - that's why it's so tedious and everybody hates it.

But those specialized programs have tricks and tools that make it easier and faster to do for video (e.g. keyframe interpolation, tools for vertices, variable point feathering )

Even on this short scene, there is shake (it's not stabilized), and the girl's head moves (I should know her name, but it escapes me) , so you would have to mask out the head as well, as it moves . If you stabilize the clip, the rotoscoping becomes easier (because the background lines are static and the same between frames) . Roto artists always do this step first. Even if there is meant to be camera shake or movement in a particular scene, they often stabilize it and reapply the shake afterwards . (less movement between frames means less roto work, less moving the mouse or moving vertices so the work is faster)

Once you have a mask, it's easy to apply in avisynth (or any program like a video editor)

[unclescoob]

I can stabilize it and desaturate and apply some clean-up with MvDegrain before I even create the mask. Just to make things easier.

[sanlyn]

McDegrain will make it worse. Grain isn't the problem. This copy of the toon seems more disturbed and freaky than the same scene posted over a year ago.

[unclescoob]

What do you think? I did this with no mask. Still needs a little work.

[unclescoob]

MvDegrain will make it worse.

Are you absolutely sure about that?

[sanlyn]

There's very little noise in the vid I posted July 5th. I didn't use MvDegrain. It's a little green, but I didn;t spend that much time on the color. But use what you want. Yours has flicker and the borders are fluttering, but that can be fixed. If that's good enough, you have what you want.

[unclescoob]

There's very little noise in the vid I posted July 5th.

No, but there's major ghosting now.

It's a little green.

Yeah, see I meant to ask you just out of curiosity: Why did you convert the hue of my video to green?

but I didn;t spend that much time on the color.

Never asked anyone here to address that. This thread is about masking, not color.

Yours has flicker.

Are you sure about that? I'd look at it a second time around.

the borders are fluttering

That, I can agree with. How can I fix that? I just used Stab()